Just a super quick update

One of my favorite pieces of art, ever.

Oh wow, I haven't posted in a crazy long time.  Well, you know what?  Real life happens (work's been busy!) and I've been off playing other games that are not of the table-top variety.  I started getting back into World of Warships with my clan and I've only recently played 40K again after the world's longest hiatus.  We played a 4K vs. 4K game where I was 2v1 with my Dark Eldar/Eldar vs. Tyranids/Blood Angels.  Not the most fluffy game, but I was able to put virtually everything I owned on the table.  It was a crazy bloodbath and that kinda got me thinking about the game again.

I think I really enjoy 40K 8th as a casual game, but not really as a competitive game for some reason.  I'm excited to see what they have in store for Dark Eldar, and I promise that the blog will get more activity once they come out.  I've pretty much stopped the ridiculous Ynarri stuff, even though that was one of the main reasons why I bought a bunch of Wraithguard D-Scythes, but after some soul-searching, I've decided to step away from full-blown Ynnari to something more tame.  I think for more casual games, this is perfectly acceptable as I really enjoy the look of Eldar fighters and I've been pretty happy with my choices so far.

One of the other armies that I'm thinking about adding is Harlequins, but I'm reluctant again because they don't have a new book and they seem really janky.  Not janky as in they're bad, but they're really expensive for a few models that might not have the staying power to really have a larger impact on the battlefield.  This is especially the case that everyone and their mother can just fall back out of combat and leave them in the open to get shot.  That feelsbadman.

Anyways, here's my current go-to for a standard 2K army list:

1999 // 7 CP
Aeldari Battalion - 3 CP

HQ:
Farseer Skyrunner = 135
Doom, Guide

Warlock = 35
Protect/Jinx

TROOP:
5x Warriors, Blaster = 50
Venom = 80
130

5x Warriors, Blaster = 50
Venom = 80
130

5x Warriors, Blaster = 50
Venom = 80
130

ELITE:
5x Wraithguard, D-Scythes = 225
Wave Serpent, VEngines, Stones, 3x SC = 154
379

HEAVY:
Ravager, 3x Dark Lance = 155
Ravager, 3x Dark Lance = 155
Ravager, 3x Dark Lance = 155

+++

Alaitoc Air Wing - 1 CP

Hemlock Wraithfighter, Stones = 210
Jinx

Hemlock Wraithfighter, Stones = 210
Jinx

Crimson Hunter Ex, 2x Bright Lance = 175

How many of you out there are just playing for fun vs. being in the competitive circuit?  I've played a few ITC games at my local shop once 8th came out, but I didn't really get the urge to go back.  I do like the social aspect of the game more and I'm definitely more casual now than ever before.

Oh, and in case you guys didn't see, BFG Armada II was announced a few weeks back.  I don't know man, as much as I'm a hardcore 40K fan, BFG addict and RTS fanatic, I can't get around how shitty Tindalos is as a developer and company.  They pretty much trashed the balance in the first game and pretty much left it to die.  Definitely didn't get good vibes with them, especially when you look at all their previous projects and games that they shipped and left to rot.  That's just not cool man.  Regardless, I'll probably end up playing the game, mainly because they've announced they'll have all 12 factions available at game launch.  It'll probably be terribly balanced and really shitty, but it's BFG and that's a must-have for me.

Sorry for the lack of updates everyone, stay in there.  I'll be back once Dark Eldar gets their new book!  Oh, and one more thing:  Happy New Year!

Some updates and Battlefleet Gothic Armada

Getting pumped!

Sorry I've been a bit busy folks.  It was been quite a hectic turn of events lately with real life, work, and only one lousy X-Wing tournament where I came in 11/40 running Brobots.  Can you believe it?  I was the only Brobots player at the whole event.  I ran the variant codenamed Tricky Crabs and it was B/C with Crack Shot with Advanced Sensors with HLCs.  There were some games where the dice spiked really wildy like the first game vs. PalpAces, to a point where I think my opponent rolled 21/21 hits on red dice without mods.  He was kind enough to apologize for that craziness, so props to him.

I'm going to an Armada Store Championship this weekend AND next weekend, and I'm probably going to bring my MC80/MKII/TRC90 list with 4x YTs to both events.  I haven't played in a while though, so I might be a little rusty to say the least.  No worries though, the events by me are fairly casual and we're still trying to build a community here and that's the most important part.  I would much rather grow the community than show up super competitive, stomp on some newbies and then drive them away from playing the game ever again.

On the PC gaming front, this month will be pretty exciting.  News on the street says Battlefleet Gothic Armada will be releasing, and I have already pre-ordered the game so I'm going to be in the multiplayer beta that will hopefully be in the next week or two.  Since I have such a huge hard on for  BFG and RTS games in general, this is going to be life-consuming.  I'm thinking about doing full coverage using the blog, the gaming channel AND streaming through Twitch.  The idea behind that will just be to play the game as much as possible and see how I like it.  Hopefully the game will be good; with solid gameplay mechanics, good balance and rewarding depth.  I'm really hoping that it will be good, but I'm keeping a very close eye on For Honor and Total War: Warhammer too in the next couple of months.  Both of those should be coming out for PC and both should be purchase-worthy for me.

Once BFG:A hits beta, I'll start spamming links all over the blog, complete with strategy guides on how to play.  I'll probably play a lot of Eldar since that's what I played back in the day, but I'm also intrigued on what the Chaos fleet has to offer.  Stay tuned!

Here is a blurb about what I had to say about how Eldar could play in BFG:A compared to the TT:

Eldar on TT are as follows:
>They are extremely maneuverable and fast with the right sun facing.
>Their ships are rather specialized and cost more than other races.
>Their ships are more fragile and can take critical much easier.
>They have more accurate torpedoes and gunnery.
>Their torpedoes and aircraft are much harder to hit while being superior.
>Their Pulsars are essentially rapid fire lances.
>Their ships are protected by Holo-fields; which makes them very difficult to hit, but no turrets.
>Their ships' weapons are generally shorter ranged and prow-focused.

In short, they use speed and maneuverability to get in close, hit extremely hard, while slipping away from return fire due to their Holo-fields. If they do suffer hits (generally due to AoEs, celestial phenoms, and/or saturation of fire), they will take greater amounts of damage due to the lower hull values on their ships and being more susceptible to crits.

How they will translate on the PC remains to be seen, but I think all of the above can be translated quite easily as long as the damage formula incorporates hit chance. I believe there is hit chance because looking at some of the gameplay videos and tutorials, it's pretty clear that ships can actually miss shots. This means that roughly 83% of conventional weapons will miss the Eldar, but once they do hit, they will hit for significant damage and increased crit chance.

With his playstyle in mind, it's going to be quite clear that Eldar are going to be extremely micro-intensive compared to the other factions. It's just how their ships are designed to play.

It's been a long time

Best score was 36-0 in a TIE Fighter.  Forgot to screenshot gg.

Hi guys, sorry it's been such a long time, but I've had the driest of spells in terms of minis games.  I think the whole Age of Sigmar stuff bummed me out to a point where I didn't want anything to do with Games Workshop for a while, but it turned out that it spilled over to all of my minis stuff.  Don't worry though, that's about to change big time in the next couple of weeks.

To start off, I'd like to say that I think I'll be switching over to playing X-Wing for quite some time.  I just think FFG does everything a hundred times better than GW and honestly, having played Netrunner, Warhammer Conquest and X-Wing, I must say that they are straight up better games.  Since I'm a gamer first and foremost, I'll be getting back into X-Wing in a big way.  I already have 3 of the new Force Awaken sets and I can't wait to get some of my new toys on the field.  As some of you guys might know, I'm an elite Interceptor player at heart.  That's how I started the hobby and that's the direction I want to continue in.  However, it's hard to beat having multiple TIE F/Os on the field because they're so damn good for the points.  Sure, some might think 15 points min is a little steep, but the improved dial and the extra shield for 3 more points is a damn good bargain.  The same could be said about the T-70, especially since it's pretty much a flat out better version of the T-65 but you gain the boost ability and a shield for almost no points over the stock T-65.

In terms of gaming, I've been playing a lot of computer games over the last couple of weeks.  I've gotten back into Wargame: Red Dragon, started playing World of Warships in my German Battleship Tirpitz, and recently finished playing 24 hours of the Star Wars Battlefront beta.  If you haven't played the beta, I'm sorry, but it's probably the best beta I've ever played.  The immersion is amazing; the size of the world, the feel of the battlefield, the sounds, the rich atmospherics, and the beautiful graphics is just sublime.  It's hard to describe it entirely, but its something I think every serious Star Wars fan or even gamer needs to get their hands on it when it comes out on November 17th.  I already pre-ordered the game not because I had a great time, but also because it was surprisingly smooth with very minor glitches and network issues.  Balance issues aside, the game is looking to be one hell of a game.  I literally spent 22 of those 24 hours in the cockpit of a TIE Fighter or X-Wing, and my KDR towards the end was insane.  I rarely died and had numerous games where I was 25+ kills to zero deaths.  Hold onto your seat boys, the ace of aces is coming to get you in Squadron Battles.  Oh, and if you want to talk about flying some more, just let me know in the comments and I'll explain the best I can!

Speaking of which, once Battlefront releases, I'm thinking about starting a gaming channel on Youtube.  I think it will have a lot of Battlefront stuff on it, but I'm also thinking about increasing the production value on some of the minis games that I play, namely X-Wing or whatever else I get my hands on.  My wife is a brilliant editor and she already said she can help me with the footage that I'll shoot during gaming.  That's pretty damn awesome.

Alright, that's all I got for now boys.  Stay cool and keep doing what you're doing, which is being awesome.

Finally, an update

I'm Samurai all the way.

Sorry for the lack of posts guys, a lot has been going on in my life.  WHFB has fell a little silent in my area, I just got rid of my huge Tyranids army, played a single game of 40K last week, but before then, I haven't been gaming much at all.  I got a new job and things have been pretty busy for me between work and a lot of traveling.

My new big obsession won't come out for another couple of months.  If you guys missed the preview of "For Honor" at E3, I highly suggest you guys check it out.  It's basically a pumped up, smoother version of Chivalry, but with much better graphics and 3 factions to play with:  Knights, Vikings and Samurai.  You can catch the gameplay video here, and the trailer for the game here.  Once that game comes out, you won't be seeing me for a very long time.

What have you guys been up to?  What games have you been playing?  I'm thinking about playing some X-Wing this Tuesday at the minis club, or maybe even some Warmachine.

Response to an article on BoLS

So much good and bad..

You can find the article here:
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/04/editorial-gw-doesnt-need-to-listen-to-us.html

For those people saying that GW doesn't need to listen to be successful..

I don't agree with this at all. Making a nice, balanced game does not alienate or eliminate the casual/hobby crowd at all. Making a crappy, poorly designed game that cares nothing for balanced gameplay keeps the gamers away. If they only cared about the game they're designing, they would have both parties.

They can start by hiring a community manager or designer with a speciality in balance. Other, more modern game companies such as PP, FFG, Spartan, Hawk, all have designers who are very much intune with the community, the tournament scene, the metagame, and the general health of the game.

Experimental rules is a thing, alpha and beta rules are a thing. PP run testbeds in mini-campaigns all the time to test out rules all the time. GW just lives under a damn rock and have none of these modern ideologies. The community of gamers want to be involved and test out rules and provide feedback (good and bad). There's just no place to do so.

I don't really care though man, not anymore. I've been with GW games for 14 years and they haven't changed, in fact, in some cases they got worse. With their mission statement specifically calling out that they're a collectibles company and not a gaming company, that's just a big spit in the face for all their loyal gamers out there. The second you attach rules to your models, you become a gaming company whether you like it or not. It's up to you to make it better and keep it healthy, and they haven't been doing a good job with that. All the other companies I listed above are running circles around them in terms of rules development and actually knowing what their community wants, because they actually listen, and have taken action to make the game better. They actually understand that making the rules better do nothing for the casual player, the hobbiest or the painter, and that it only affects the player. GW does not, and for that reason, they will never be as successful as they might be.

Let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments below.

Playing Navy Field 2

Blowing things up in me ship.

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of minis posts, but I've been playing a lot of Navy Field 2 lately.  It's a MOBA-like micro-intensive naval warfare game on the PC.  Check it out for yourself, but ignore the Steam reviews with low playstyle as they're often quite biased and trash.

As a dedicated DD player (Lv.88, IJN Shimakaze DD), I have some tips to offer newer and experienced players alike.

• For Officers, I'm currently going full Reload on Torps for Weapons, 3/2 Defense/Engine for Support, Full Sonar and Full Evasion.  My justification for the Defense/Engine is for the Shimakaze specifically, because it has Defense and Engine upgrades innately.  Otherwise, I would probably go full Engine.
• Use the map (M) when determining where an enemy is.  As a DD player, I don't know what "here" means when locating a sub without VOIP.  "D-3" means all the world to me and will get me excited to help you.
• It's important to familiarize yourself with different ship classes and what they mean to your role on the battlefield:
• Against enemy BBs - Look for torp run opportunities and torp wall assist your bigger ships in stand-off duels.  Launching torps in their direction will force them to turn or take damage since they're typically angled for broadside engagements.  If you can force them to turn to minimalize their damage, that means your BBs will be able to deliver greater damage through attrition.
• Against enemy CVs - You can typically hunt these after the bigger ships are destroyed because good CV players know how to utilize space.  By this, I mean they will be behind the rest of their fleet, typically as a support vessel that is still connected to the battlefield.  They will have eyes everywhere and to chase these guys first means losing out on more important engagements that will swing the battle more (killing enemy BBs for example).  Very easy target for DDs otherwise.
• Against enemy SSs - Spam the crap out of Sonar in areas where subs are sighted.  1-5 means you should set charges to either 1-5 depending on the status of the enemy sub.  For example, if the sub just went below and I can no longer see its silhouette, I will set the charge to 3 and see where that gets me.  If I don't hit, I'm going to go for 5 and go from there while hitting Sonar everytime the cooldown is up to reconfirm the depth.  If you can still see the silhouette, then guns and prox torps will get you pretty good results, and DCs at level 1 will be very deadly.  A good prox torp spread will drop most subs in one volley.
• Against enemy CAs - Apply the same philosophy of BBs but know that you are hitting a much smaller target that have better speed, turning, turret speed and reload.  This means that they're just as dangerous if not more dangerous than BBs because you will need to put damage on a more maneuverable ship.  This will make your torp runs more difficult.
• Against enemy CLs - You should play a pure support role in this case and let your BBs do the heavy lifting.  Most CLs bar the torpboats are almost a direct counter to DDs because of their speed and much more powerful guns.  They are able to put a lot of fire down range quickly and effectively, and have the speed and maneuverability to chase and apply damage while dodging torpedoes.  Approach with care.

• Torps can practically travel across the map if you set them to Slow instead of Fast.  The only time you want to use Proximity is if you're fighting against really fast and agile ships with low HP.  Otherwise, stick to Contact because you need the greater damage potential.
• DDs take a lot of micromanagement, way more than other ships from my experience playing so far.  I will stress 5 key points in this next section:
• Speed - You will need speed in order to reach targets of opportunity, to close gaps and to escape.  Save your engine burn for making a torpedo run or for making a dash to escape.  I tend to spam the burn key if I need to reach a target, but I save it if I know the firefight is going to get bloody and I'll need to make a quick exit.
• Maneuverability - In order for you to stay in the game, you need to be able to move.  You have virtually no HP and you have to be unpredictable with your movement and be in constant flux.  Simply waving back and forward will not do it.  Mix-up zig-zags, engine burn straights, tight turns, wide turns, and basically anything you can think of to shake of pursuit.  This includes sending proximity-armed torpedoes in the direction of enemy ships.
• Fast Turrets - I meant for this to be in a section of its own because it's a difficult subject for fast-moving DDs.  Most of the time, I'm either running for my life or going for a torpedo run.  During this time, I'm also finding targets to shoot at constantly so you're always clicking around and doing something.  When I say fast turrets, I mean that as the DD player, you should always be training your turrets in the direction that you're firing from, regardless of your ships orientation.  If my target is facing west, I'm going to click in that direction with BOTH guns and torpedoes as I move.  I'm constantly toggling guns and torpedoes, aiming them directly at the target every 2-3 seconds, or the exact space of my reload times.   This way, you're always on target, regardless of your ship's crazy orientation.  If you ever find yourself not having to adjust, you're probably moving in a straight line, in which case you're probably going to die in the next few seconds from a manual-aiming BB.
• Fast Reload - You should always be dealing damage in the game.  Your faster reload means you'll have the ability to consistently put out damage while being a difficult target to return fire at.  If someone is chasing you, you should be firing off anti-pursuit Torps while constantly shooting at the targets behind.  IJN Destroyers are typically geared for this purpose as they have 2 aft double-turrets.  This means they can put out greater damage if they're being chased from the rear.  Regardless, you should note your gun's orientations and make constant adjustments to target priority and range so you can constantly put out shells down range.  Often times, I see DD players going for several seconds without doing a single point of damage.  This is because of poor micromanagement and the inability to adjust speeds, dodge, while simultaneously train their guns AND torpedo launchers, while making quick and accurate shots.  Yes, that's a lot to do in a span of a few seconds, but you're playing DD and that's expected in high levels of gameplay.
• Torpedoes - And here we have it, the crux of playing a good destroyer.  You NEED to be able to utilize the true potential of your DD in order to take down major targets; otherwise you have no use in higher-tier games.  Sure, sub hunting is one thing, but being able frighten larger ships is arguably much more important than dropping a few Depth Charges.  If you have no weapons to be feared, you're pretty much dead weight in any given fleet.  Continue reading below.

From my experience, here's how I deliver Torpedoes:

• Slow when I need the Torps to travel and Fast when I need better time on target.
• Proximity when fighting fast, agile ships with low HP.  That means I will also use Prox to finish off severely damaged ships.  Otherwise, I use straight Contact for CA+ class ships because Proximity will just tickle them.
• Always Gradual, because you will need to read target orientation.  More on this below.
• Wide when I need a larger spread because it's the safer move.  By this, I mean that the target is lower in health and you just need a few torps to finish him off, or when you have the broadside of a BB and its hull will eat all of your torps anyway.  Thus, it will be safer to make the shot using Wide.  I will only use Narrow when I need precision in a shot to deliver maximum damage.  For example, a BB at full health moving abeam and not turning, or a stationary target.  Narrow is a ton of damage, but very risky because you can miss with all of them.

To sum up the Torp run vs. CA+ class ships:

• Make sure the target is distracted and that its turrets are trained at another target.  Their turret speed COMBINED with your speed is what's giving you this opportunity, nothing else.  All the good players driving these ships will be able to manual aim your ship into the ground if you mess up on the run.  It's literally do or die and you have no second chance unless your target is dead.
• Figure out the best way to approach the ship, and from which direction you're approaching from.  There are several different vectors, but the main ones I'm going to be describing will be when the target is..
• Abeam - When moving in opposite directions, side by side.
• Abreast - when moving in the same direction, side by side.
• Closing - When the enemy ship is coming directly at you.
• Away - When the enemy ship is moving directly away from you.

The best scenario for the Torp run will be either from Abeam and Abreast.  Abeam is ideal because you're going to be closing and when combined with his speed and your overdrive, you will give the enemy ship the shortest time to react.  Against an enemy BB, depending on the size of the enemy hull, you will want as many Torpedoes as possible to Contact his hull.  Often times, a Wide/Fast/Contact will be enough to fully cover a high-tier BB, but Narrow can be used if you're confident in the shot.

Abreast can be trickier because the target ship will turn either into you or away.  This will force them into approaching Closing and Away vectors which will generally decrease their footprint and thus make your shots more difficult.  If they turn away, Narrow will miss if you lead them too far, and if they turn into you, Narrow will miss if you lead them short.  This shot requires you to be more precise with the torpedoes timed on target directly in the middle of the enemy ship, so you will need to account for your lead and the speed of the enemy ship's turn before your release.  If they turn into you and you're too close, they can also get within "arming range" of your torps and they will fail to fire.  This is even worse than not doing enough damage because now, you just did zero damage for a long cooldown.

Closing/Away are most difficult of shots because the footprint is extremely small and damage is minimalized to the greatest when using Wide, and can miss completely when using Narrow.  You are literally threading the needle here, so the best course of action will be to generally use Wide and deliver Torpedoes in Gradual bursts so you can determine how the target turns.  Once the turn is determined, you can follow up with more precise shots.  This in turn will also mean that you will spend more time than you want when making a torp run, and exposing yourself to greater harm.  The hardest types of shots are when you're crossing their T and they're Closing or Away.  You typically just want to find another attack vector, but there will be situations where you're forced into this.  Luckily for you, the DD can move really quick to adjust and you should move either abeam or abreast on the opposite side of the direction he fired in last.

Remember, regardless of target orientation, the one thing you really want to keep in the back of your mind when making a torp run is this:  How to inflict as much damage as possible and get out alive.  If any of the scenarios does not justify the cost of your ship, then simply do not make a torp run.  A simple flowchart will do in most cases:

Is the enemy ship distracted with another ship?
Yes: This might be your chance.  See next.
No: You're probably dead.

What direction are his turrets?
Away from you: This is your chance.
Towards you: Risky, but do-able.

Should you fail in the Torp run, you're probably going to die vs. higher-level players.  The best chance you have here is to cross to the opposite side of his ship to the other side of his turrets and get outta there ASAP.  Your guns are ineffective and you just blew your cooldown so you're doing do damage.  Bob and weave and use short/long turns while running your engine to max burn to hopefully live and fight another day.  Remember to leave behind torp walls if you're being chased by faster ships.

That's all I got for now, and thanks for reading.

Games and XCOM vision

Get ready for a deep article.

Lately, I've been doing a lot of game-related soul searching on how I view games in general.  For the most part, I play games to have fun.  A lot of old friends ask me if that's really the case because most of them don't believe me when I say I play to have fun in the game.  Why?  Because my definition of fun can be very different from theirs'.

For me, I have the most fun when I can maximize the effectiveness of whatever I'm playing and defeat my opponents with better use of strategy and tactics.  When it comes to looking at my personality, I am a Spike first and foremost, but I also relate primarily to the Tuner subgroup of this particular gamer archetype.  You probably won't find me as particular innovative, or the type of person to come up with "HERO's Winning Combo" or whatever, but you will find articles on this blog dealing with how to maximize your army for a particular purpose or ideal.

Before I even get to enter the strategy or tactical portion of the games I'm involved in, I try my best to maximize my chances of winning through list design.  In MTG, I look at mana curves, CMC, speed through playtests, and the quickest way to win through a certain combo.  In Warhammer, I maximize the chances that I can win with my list and I do that through numbers, different unit choices and effective bucket lists.  Most of you will believe me when I say that if I was to take a percentage of total time spent on Warhammer, it would be 70% list building, 20% playing and 10% putting new models together.  When there's nothing to put together, I still maintain a 70-30 ratio of army design to actually playing the game.  Does this seem crazy to anyone?  It shouldn't, especially if you're a competitive gamer before anything else because you understand just how important theorycrafting is.

Over the years, I've calmed down a fair bit when I'm playing my Warhammer.  The game has become a little more wild and there's generally a lot more craziness going on at any given time.  I used to take the units that are the strongest in the game, but for the last 6 years or so since I started this blog, I've been taking what I enjoy fielding.  This can be anything from fielding more models that are aesthetically pleasing to me, units that fit my particular playstyle or units that match my particular strategy.  That's why you see half-mech Mech BA, full Mech Space Wolves with Predator tanks, lance-heavy pure DE Kabal, Pure Grey Knights, Elite Imperial Interceptors, and now the Two Towers Skaven.  Once I latch onto an idea, I work as hard as I can to make it work to the best of my ability.  Sure, I dab into mixing other competitive options in to maintain variety or to maximize my chances at winning (e.g. splashing Eldar into Dark Eldar), but I get the greatest satisfaction in winning with something that I find thematically appealing.

After I maximize my lists, I put it on the battlefield.  Now, I don't know about most of you guys, but I figure the guys that enjoy reading my blog are gamers first and foremost.  I mean, all the shit I write are about list building, strategy and tactics, and you know by now that I haven't painted in god knows how long.  The reason for that is quite simple:  The time I could be painting can be better spent on maximizing my army lists and playing more games!  I really enjoy playing the game more than anything else, and that's the god honest truth.

When I do play the game, I look at the game in what I like to call, XCOM vision.  Let's just take a game of Warhammer for example, or even X-Wing.  The game is pretty much made out of numbers disguised over heaps of gorgeous plastic models.  When I look on the battlefield, I don't really think about the fantasy of the game I'm actually playing in the present.  What I mean by this is that I'm not actively forming a story behind the game that I'm playing, I do all that stuff in hindsight after the dice has been rolled and the game is over.  When I'm actually playing the game, I'm looking at percentages of me winning combat, the percentage of the enemy unit still being there and me overrunning, what's the chance to miscast on the next spell, and a thousand and one scenarios how my opponent will react if I choose option A, B, C, D..etc.  That is what my mind is doing when I'm playing the game and if you guys have played XCOM before, the game is basically a string of decisions presented by percentages that you, the player has to deal with based on how you maneuver.  A friend asked me once when I was playing eCaine why I am always moving around the table, measuring my control, looking at 30 different units, while constantly squinting my eyes and scratching my head.  I just told him that out of the 17 different assassination vectors I thought about, this is the best one.

I find that this style of playing the game to be a double-edged sword.  After all, am I really enjoying a game if I'm looking at the game like a complicated math problem with a thousand different answers?  The answer is yes, for me at least.  I just enjoy this kind of play because that's how my mind becomes challenged, and I need it to be challenged when I'm playing a game.  Unfortunately, this is very rare among table-top gamers and one of the reasons why I get frequently mismatched.

Total War: Warhammer is real

It is real.

We knew that it was coming, but accidentally leaked on a few websites today is official news that TW: Warhammer is coming in the near future.  I've shared quite a few articles on this subject already so I'll make this one brief.

In my opinion, the design philosophy behind the Total War games work perfectly with Warhammer.  In WHFB, you have combat resolution which is played out perfectly in Total War because of how the morale system works.  Unfortunately, I don't believe the current software engine that's present in Rome2 will work if they want to add flying units, dragons and other monsters.  They really need a engine that can handle those kind of units to make the visuals convincing.  Otherwise, it's going to look like any other mod.

Aside from the engine, a few other things will need extreme thought in order for the title to be successful.  The biggest one is probably the SP campaign, the setting in relation to the current End Times scenarios.  How many factions will have in the game?  Will it be before or after the End Times?  Personally, I think it should sync up with 9th Ed.'s ideas of the future of Warhammer.

My other concerns lie around the design mechanics more than other aspects.  How will CA handle lords and heroes?  How will they make them stand out on the battlefield in such a way that's far more than your generic general's unit in most Total Wars?  How about challenges?  What about magic items?  Speaking of magic, how will they handle it to play fluidly in an RTS?  I have my own ideas of course, but I'm really waiting for CA to shed some light on how these complicated mechanics are going to work.

Warhammer is a world where epic heroes fight among thousands of troops, escorted by terrible monsters, with magic and sorcery flying all over the place.  While I believe CA will be able to do the title justice, I'm just hoping that their vision of the game lines up with.. well, mine.

Only time will tell.  I'll share some of my ideas in the future.

Warhammer: The beginning of the end?

I'm worried for GW, not gonna lie.

There has been a lot of doom and gloom lately with 9th Ed. WHFB seemingly around the corner.  You can catch most of the rumors from other sites like BoLS and Faeit, but a lot of popular rumormongers have been talking about round bases, eradicating existing armies, reducing units, reducing scale, and rebooting the setting directly.

I don't know how many of these are true, or how many of these are actually going to happen, but one thing is for damn sure:  This will be the truest test of GW for me personally.  If 9th Ed. WHFB is a giant flop, there's a huge chance that I will sell all my armies (both 40K and Fantasy) and abandon GW entirely.

It's been a rough couple of years for me for GW games specifically.  In the realm of design, I've seen some really nice pieces of work and some really shitty ones.  I've seen armies that I thought was going to see buffs and improvement receive utter crap and nonsense.  In terms of fluff, I'm re-reading some of the older books for material because the newer books are hollowed out skeletons of what army books used to be.  Last, but certainty not least, is the complete and utter idiocy of their business motto and execution strategies.

To sum GW up for me in the last couple of years:

• Prices have gone up again.
• Design has been really questionable to downright shitty.
• Complete watered down army books in terms of material for the same prices.
• The business decisions GW makes are utter nonsense with their limited releases and availability.  Not to mention the idea that they think their shit are considered collectibles.

I'm serious when I say that GW has been pissing everyone off lately.  It will be the final nail in the coffin if they go about destroying people's hobbies by eradicating armies, and reducing other people's collections to meaningless shit.  I'm really hoping that 9th Ed. will be good.  Not good in the sense that GW will have suddenly better rules and army design, but good in terms of making business decisions with the game in mind, and not some ludicrous idea that GW miniatures are limited edition collectibles.

For 9th Ed. to be good, they need to..

Change the business motto completely:

The whole idea that their shit should be limited release with limited availability is the dumbest thing I have ever fucking seen in the business world.  Your job is to literally provide product for your customers.  That literally is your only job and you have failed at it.  Not once, but multiple times now for every End Times release.  How this is even possible is beyond the scope of my imagination.  No joke GW, you had one job.

As a models company who writes rules for the models, you are now a game company.  If not, don't write fucking rules for your models.  Understand this for one fucking second and maybe your company won't be viewed as dogshit for the vast majority of the table-top playing community.  The second you attach rules to your models and design a rules platform for it, you owe it to your customer base to provide a quality product.

For God sakes, align your business strategies with your design team.  I'm seriously cautious on how 9th Ed. will play out because of this one thing.  WHFB doesn't need to be 2500 points to play, in fact, I would say this is the biggest reason why it's failing as a product.  The buy-in price is huge and no one wants to get started.  Good, so you have made lords and heroes 50% of your army, but is that really enough to get more players playing?  Maybe consolidating the armies to 6?  No and no.  What you need is a simplified ruleset, better points scaling and scenarios that promote smaller games.  If you can accomplish these three things, you will be able to achieve more players in your game.

Reduce the total army count to something more manageable without eradicating player options, units or armies.  This is important for their existing customer base and this will give them greater design space in the future.

Whatever, it doesn't matter, it's only a matter of time. GW has been taking in water for quite some time. It's bleeding cash with a lot of internal strife, poor direction and subpar leadership. You can tell by looking at the company from a consumer standpoint and you can clearly see that the departments are not running in sync. Both business strategy, marketing and general leadership are archaic, outdated and over-reliant on all or nothings.

The only reason why GW has the best "fluff" is because they've been established for 25+ years. I sure the fuck hope they've got themselves some good fluff if they were the first into the fray. Imagine for a second what GW could be if they have a modern perspective in what makes good business truly good business. If they didn't shun their consumers but embraced them, and provided a winning strategy for both hobbyist and gamer. GW would be invincible in the minis market, utterly unchallenged instead of constantly being questioned and doubted.

Civ BE: Quick tips from playing so far

My wife called me a robot this weekend.  Does not compute.

Alright, so here's the low-down.  Let me first say that I'm no Civ expert.  I have never played the Civ series before Civ 5 and I only played that for a couple of hours in preperation for BE.  Truth be told, I'm not really a fan of hex-strategy games where the first 150 turns has almost zero combat.  I come from RTS, and I'm a very aggressive, micro-intensive player so this is as about as different as it gets.

Here's how much I played this weekend:

• It started on Thursday with the 9pm PST release, I already had it pre-loaded and I ended up playing till 5 in the morning.
• Woke up last as hell on Friday, called out of work because I was dead tired, but still ended up playing until 1am.
• Decided to run some errands on Saturday, watched my brother play with Harmony for a bit before jumping on myself and played until 5 in the morning.
• Woke up early, jumped on and played until right now.  All in all, I played way too much Civ and my wife thinks I might some problems.  I don't deny it.

I spent most of Thursday experimenting with some of the game mechanics, and I spent most of Friday min-maxing what I have learned.  From my playfest, I would like to share with you some of the stuff that I learned, having played and completed all 5 victory conditions on the default difficulty.  My brother's Harmony game was on the next highest difficulty, but I didn't really see that much of a difference.

Here's what I learned about Beyond Earth so far:

• I've only played with ARC, Pan-Asian Cooperative, Polystralia and Fraco-Iberia so far.  Out of those, I feel that Polystralia and ARC are the strongest.  Fraco can be good, but the technology bonus needs to be timed really well to get the big pay off.  Pan-Asian's worker speed is nice, but not as good as ARC and Polystralia's bonuses.
• Why?  Because ARC allows you to spy faster and get more intrigue, which allows you to do nastier stuff.  I don't really care about this in particular, what I really care about is the faster operations.  Faster operations means you can steal science faster, which means you get faster research.  This is huge, and very consistent since steal technology gives you random crap.
• Polystralia sings well to one of the game's assets right now and that's trade.  Trade is absolutely huge in this game and you gotta set that stuff up quick.  Once you get your trade routes established, the money starts to flow and everything is smooth sailing from there.  Energy and research gives you everything you need to jumpstart your game and stay ahead of the other races.
• If you have a coastal city, sometimes its best to start with the small trading convoys and then upgrade to trading vessels later on.  Water cargo gives you a lot bigger payoffs and allows you to reach out to other continents.  If you're doing well on exploring and you're getting a good amount of energy, feel free to go for vessels immediately on coastal cities.
• How I like to start off a faction is to pick the faction, go for Artists because of the +2 culture and +1 health in every city, Fusion Reactor for the faster 2nd Explorer, Laboratory so you can immediately start trading and save yourself some research time, and land on a Terran world because you get land, water, and multiple trading areas and playstyles.
• Once I get in game, I look at the Prosperity tree in Virtue for a large amount of my time.  The +10% growth is great in early game and helps me get more citizens while I go straight for the free Worker and Colonist.  Basically, anything that's free or near-free is extremely good at getting going early game.  It's very much a snowball because if you get a good location with healthy trade routes, expansion opportunities and your shit doesn't get fucked up by the local aliens, then you're good to go.
• Double Explorer is vital because it allows you to go around the world, scout things out and get research pods.  Pods gives you all kinds of different bonuses, but the culture ones are exceptional because of the free virtues they give you.  If you get a free affinity level, put it into Purity because it makes it so aliens don't attack your explorers.  This is super useful in early game when you're cracking all the expeditions open.  Combine this with Pathfinders from the Prosperity tree and you're rolling in free expeditions.
• Another reason I go Prosperity is because of the health bonuses.  Sure, grabbing the buildings that give you health is great, but having a virtue that gives you Mind Over Matter for +7 the heath is fucking ridiculous.  When you expand and your cities grow, your health starts to go down and everything slows down if you fall into the red.  The same thing happens with you annex other cities after you kick their ass or turn them into puppet states.  Good health in this game makes you stay on top of the other factions.  Every single game, all of my cities are floating around 20+ and staying in a Utopian society for max +bonuses.  It's just essential if you want to have a good economy and kick ass with your military.
• Speaking of which, don't build your military up too quickly, and hold off on the Might virtues until you're ready to roll out.  The +50% experience is great, but often times that's enough from that tree.  Once you get into later game and you have a lot of science, the Foresight from the Knowledge tree is also fantastic.  After you're ready to build your late game wincons like Emancipation Gate, go into the Industry tree for faster buildings and wonders.
• I can't stress the importance of having healthy cities and a good economy before military units.  If the local aliens are giving you a hard time, look into getting the fence from Ecology that keeps them away from your capital buildings.  If they start attacking your convoys, getting the fence will give you the quest option to make your convoys immune to alien attacks.  Always get this if your convoys are getting attacked or else you're just bleeding money and falling behind.
• When looking around for good expansion spots on the map, you must know what kind of resources plays well with your affinity.  For Supremacy, you want Firaxite nodes, Xenomass if you're going Harmony and Floatstone if you're going Purity.  The only way you're going to find this out is by having a lot of scouting and uncovering as much of the continent that you're on ASAP.  At the end of the day, the map will determine which affinity you will be best for, which kind of sucks if you really enjoy the Supremacy playstyle or whatever.  If the map doesn't have any Firaxite, you're pretty much screwed unless you trade for all these luxury resources.  This can be a huge waste of money in the long run, so its best to let the map determine which affinity you roll with.  This is another reason I like having Pioneering pre-researched, since it allows my guys to go on water via the Planetary Survey research in the same tree.
• The Spy Agency is pretty important in this game and so is intrigue.  I always try to get as much stolen research as possible to shorten the time I need to research sometime.  It's consistent and gives you a keeps you ahead on the research tree.
• I'm the kind of player that likes to build 3-4 cities and then keep them as healthy as possible.  I don't think you really need more than that, because if you need more, just build an army, kill other players and get yourself some puppet states.  Don't bother annexing them because it's a serious hit on your overall health.  Hopefully by this stage in the game, the cities you destroy have some kind of trade established and you can just build the vessels/convoys at your cities and send it over to them if you don't have any.  Otherwise, just raze them into the ground.  I believe this particular playstyle of having fewer but more powerful cities is called "tall" for all those civ fans out there.
• Research small upgrades that gives you boosts to your economy early on.  While rushing to that Spy Agency via Computing might seem like the best thing ever, if I can grab 2-3 research options that will improve my economy first in the early game, I will most likely do that.  It's also smart to go for the luxury materials foundries because you can always work those tiles early.
• Don't get caught up in building Wonders in early game, but let your cities build what's really important: anything that contributes to your economy.  When I say economy, I mean trade routes, science, health, production, food, energy, because anything that boost the performance of your cities will keep you ahead for the rest of the game.  Wonders will come when you're at 3+ cities and you can dedicate your city with the highest production to building them, which is probably going to be your capital (since it should be the most developed by then).
• Laying siege to towns is really quick in this game compared to the other Civ games from what I'm told.  My brother has played nearly every civ pretty competitively so he's been one hell of a coach.  What you want to do is get yourself no more than 3 artillery pieces because believe me, that's pretty much all you need to bring a city to its knees.  Your cruisers are also really effective at laying waste of coastal cities, so I always bring some naval units when I'm waging war on the seas.  While you can build a Gunboat to patrol, I wouldn't go near any of the aliens in the water until you get yourself some cruisers to take them down.
• Speaking of combat, all the races play pretty differently when it comes to warfare.  Purity is a pretty defensive faction with a lot of buffs that target their defensive traits, and most of their stuff can float above the ground thanks to Floatstone technology.  Supremacy is very much about the attack, having good range, damage bonuses to standing next to adjacent units, and can shoot twice on their shootier stuff in later game.  Then comes Harmony, which is about speed, healing and using miasma to improve their units in combat.  You typically want to start your assault with the field covered with miasma because it deals damage to your enemies and give you bonuses.  It's basically scorched earth tactics at that point.

Emancipate them with Angels!

Here's a quick blurp on how to win in this game.  You can find more info here.

Victory Conditions

There is  "flavor text" about each of the victory conditions in their corresponding quest entries, but I will not sport with your intelligence by reposting them here. Below are the gameplay-relevant summaries of each:

• Domination: conquer the capital cities of all other factions.
• Contact (Science): discover clues left by the intelligent Precursor aliens who once inhabited this planet, decode "The Signal" and contact them. To start, complete two of these three tasks:
  • Find a fragment of The Signal via an Explorer Expedition on Progenitor Ruins. The chance is slim, but possible.
  • Launch a Deep Space Telescope orbital unit to search for a fragment of The Signal.
  • Research the Transcendental Math technology and solve the Transcendental Equation to derive a Signal fragment.
  Then:
  • Build the Decode Signal project.
  • Build the (Contact Beacon) Planetary Wonder to attract the attention the aliens.
  • Achieve oneness with Carl Sagan.
• The Promised Land (Purity): tame the planet in the name of Humanity and make it a home for our Earthbound brethren.
  • Research Orbital Networks and build a Lasercom Satellite to reestablish communication with Earth.
  • Achieve Purity level 13 and build the Exodus Gate planetary wonder.
  • Receive 20 colonists from Earth through the gate and settle them.
  • Profit.
• Transcendence (Harmony): awaken the planet's sentient superorganism and mind-meld with it.
  • Research Nanorobotics, Transgenics, and Swarm Intelligence to develop the Cognitive Link.
  • Achieve Harmony level 13 and build the Mind Flower planetary wonder.
  • Defend the Mind Flower from the unclean and support it with resources and Mind Stem buildings.
  • Achieve eco-nirvana and become one with the planet's consciousness.
• Emancipation (Supremacy): annihilate humanity on Earth. Er, I mean, "free" them from their biological bodies.
  • Research Orbital Networks and build a Lasercom Satellite to reestablish communication with Earth.
  • Achieve Supremacy level 13 and build the Emancipation Gate planetary wonder.
  • Send military units through the gate to effect the mass genocide of humanity on Earth. Er, I mean, "liberate" them from their trifling, unenlightened existence.
  • Go directly to Hell. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

Just some quick words from me on the above:

• Emancipation's victory condition is sending 1000 strength worth of units through the gate and you can only send one per turn.  That means you want to send in your biggest dudes like the Angel so you can essentially complete the victory in 10 or so turns.  Don't worry, you get your Firaxite back once the Angel goes through, so you can keep buying more of them to send in.  Ideally, you want to be producing one and buying one so you never slow down a turn.
• For the Promised Land victory, you might end up wanting to kill yourself because its a huge pain in the ass .  The colonists that come from earth are slow as fuck and have limited movement, and you need to settle 20 of them on the clusterfuck world you're already in.  To make matters worse, the settlers abide by all the standard 3-tiles away bullshit so you need to spread them the fuck out too.  This one took me forever, so fuck earth and these dumbass colonists.  You can tell I'm salty.
• The Transcendence victory is by far the easiest one to complete IMO.  Just build Mind Stems and wait for the stupid thing to blossom.  Poof, instant hippie victory.
• For the Contact victory, prepare for some massive RNG because you need to explore a lot and uncover ruins that decodes the signal.  I just lucked out hard with my victory.  Proof below!  Oh, and once you turn on the beacon (30 turn wait), it will use 1000 of your energy immediately and all energy income will stop.  I guess that's what you get when you turn on a giant flashlight and point it into space.
• Lastly, the Domination victory is when you just go around kicking everyone's ass.  I did it with the Purity affinity and waged war across multiple continents like a badass.  Feelsgoodman.jpg.

Prepare to roll that D6, or D20, or 3xD20, who knows.

Alright, that's all I have for now.  My favorite affinity to play is probably Supremacy with Harmony in second.  I just really like the look of the Supremacy units and I like their aggressive playstyle nad no bullshit logic.  Purity reminds me too much of Terran back in Starcraft and I've been there, done that too many times.

Civ: Beyond Earth

This might put a slight dent in my minis time.

Anyone going to play?  I'm foaming at the mouth right now waiting for it to come online, I already got it pre-loaded.

You can talk strategy with me here!  I'm definitely going to go Supremacy first if I get a good location to do so.  Gotta emancipate those earthlings!

Been on a WWII kick

I love Tiger tanks.

Hi all, sorry for the lack of posts but I've been on a WWII kick as of late.

I've been playing a lot of Men of War: Assault Squad in preparation for the sequel that'll be released in February.  It's probably one of my favorite RTS of all time despite it having the worst user experience UI I've ever seen.  The thing that stands out the most about the game is its unique battle engine.  You can literally go into a third person perspective with any unit on the battlefield and control it to the best of its ability.  It's one of the only games where real life armor penetration is taken into consideration and the lethality in the game is enormous.  After all, if you hit a pack of flesh and blood soldiers with a volley of 20mm, they're going die terribly.

This got me thinking about Flames of War too.  I would play that game in a heartbeat if it had a bigger following.  They're the only ones who have an established WWII themed minis game out there and I think they fit a very niche market.  Maybe too niche when you consider that not a lot of people play it in my area.  Most people have never heard of it and is not willing to try another game system that requires hundreds of dollars to play.  When you look at the minis, I'm not sure if they're worth the dollars you spend on it when you can find perfectly fine replacements from a kid's toy box.

Just some wild ideas running through my head:

• If I could start my own gaming company, I would definitely like to work with a similar engine to that used in MoW: AS.  It's a great engine that really offers players the ability to min-max their game and really separates the better players from the rest.  That's the biggest winner for me.
• If more people played FoW in my area, I would be very intrigued in giving it a go.  The prices are not very attractive to me, but the gameplay looks pretty solid.
• I wonder if a WWII 15mm game that comes with pre-painted minis on a medium scale (not skirmish, not epic) would do well if they were well priced.  All plastic minis, think X-Wing quality stuff, but WWII themed and with good rules.  I would jump on that shit in a second.

That's about it!  Oh, and I'll be playing a 1500 game with my Dark Eldar this Thursday.  It's my first real game off Vassal in a while and it should be pretty fun.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!  I will be gone until the 15th of January as I will be on vacation in Southeast Asia.  My wife and I are going to check out Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam.  There will be tons of great sights to see, food to eat and awesome cultures to explore.  I wish everyone here a safe and joyous holiday season.  Take care!

When I return, I will be playing some more Dystopian Wars since that seems to be the new (old) hype in town.

More Rome II ramblings

Thoughts on Rome II after being Top50, now in Top100 because I actually go to work.

• All archer units are pretty weak in a game where the heaviest of infantry have strong armor, or formations that increases armor.  Not only that, but the units move fast and the range of most missile troops are 125.
• Only really heavy missile based armies have much effect, but a lot of the MP maps have random weather conditions and terrain that reduces their effectiveness (such as fog, rain, heavy brush, dense trees).
• The same applies here for artillery units:  Half of the maps do not favor the use of artillery so they can be a huge points sink.  All you have to do is look at the map, see what you random into, what kind of terrain you'll be fighting in, and adjust accordingly.
• Elite infantry are superior to other infantry:  They have superior stats, strong abilities, resilient to missile troops, are not unit capped, and have the same amount of bodies as a regular unit.  There's no reason to take any other unit.  Just form a line with Royal Spartans, Oathsworn and Praetorian Guard.
• Foot Companion are kind of ridiculous; they hands down beat every unit in the game from the front.  What's their counter?  Flank and rear charges once the pikes themselves have been engaged.  What counters that?  Just a little bit of micro and a IQ over 45.
• Lancer units are pretty trash overall.  Their pitiful melee defense, relatively low armor overall, and their overall impact on the battlefield is not worth their cost.  They will charge into other units, do damage sure, but other units with above average melee defense and armor will just swing back and make up for the damage done.  Once you're in combat, you also can't pull out; you'll lose half of your guys just trying to run out of combat.
• Also, all cavalry run at the same speed from what I've noticed.  The pricing of the Roman units are a joke.  Why would you ever take Praetorians over Praetorian Guard?  Or Evocati Cohort vs. Armored Legionaries?
• So what do we have here?  A game of rock paper scissors where none of it really matters.  If Archers are paper, they sure the hell don't kill the rocks which are all the heavy elite infantry.  If Scissors are the Lancers, then these must be safety scissors because they don't do jack.  And then we have Foot Companions, which might as well be a shotgun assuming you're terrible.

Some of best units in the game so far from what I've noticed:
Foot Companions, Hellenic Royal Guard, Praetorian Guard, Oathsworn, Swordmasters, Royal Spartans, Noble Horse, Aspis Companion Cavalry, Praetorian Cavalry

Playing Rome II

Royal Spartans!

Summer's been pretty dry for in terms of minis, but I have been playing a lot of computer games.  Right now, I'm playing Total War: Rome 2 and I'm top50 on the leaderboards.  The game's pretty buggy right now and there's some issues to be addressed, but I just wanted to drop a line and let you guys know what I'm up to.

As I play more, I'll blog more and more about it.

Wargame: AirLand Battle

AirLand nerding!

Been playing a lot of this lately.  A LOT.
Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been out of a minis funk because this game is so damn awesome.

Here's what I wrote about it on my Steam Review:
One of the best top-down war simulation games I've ever played. For RTS players, there is minimal micro and macro. The depth of this game lies in how well you can negotiate battle tactics and execute the overall strategy on any given map. There is a much larger emphasis on unit choices, deployment, execution of battle tactics and smart use of attrition-based warfare. The game takes place during the height of the Cold War and so all the tactics are based on actual modern warfare. Infantry units dominate city battles, tanks rip apart APCs and aircraft play a dominant role on the battlefield. With a ton of historically-accurate units to choose from, this game is a must-have, must-play for any modern war enthusiast. I strongly recommend it.

What kind of player are you?

Ready yourself, shit's about to get deep.

There's 4 camps for me in terms of table-top games:

• The story-driven casual player who likes to bring one of each unit, regardless of their effectiveness and adhere to cinematics and fluff.
• The competitive player who min-maxes his list, picks only the most points effective and stellar units for the purpose of winning games.
• The WAAC player is a competitive player but will do anything to win.  This includes cheating, calling the judge for random shit, being a horrible sportsman, running the clock, and is generally the type that gives competitive players a bad name.
• And then there's me.  I have no idea what happened over the years, but I think I'm somewhere between casual and competitive now.  Probably around ~5 years ago, I was definitely the competitive player:  Taking only the best choices without looking at anything else that's ineffective.  If Dark Eldar came out then, I would of probably went pure Venomspam.

However, something happened to my personality between then and now and I think it's changed for the better.  Shhh.. I'll tell you a secret:  I started off this hobby being very casual, only playing with what I like, loving the fluff, never fielding an army if it's not painted, and enjoying every facet of the hobby.  Sometime around the time where I'm constantly getting my teeth kicked in by better players using min-maxed armies like Nidzilla and Eldar, I changed.  If I started at year 1, my second year was devoted to becoming a better player.

Given my personality, this seems fitting because I'm by nature a min-maxing Tuner Spike.  From year 2 to year 7, I became a very good player.  During that time, I attended and won a lot of tournaments, placed well in many GTs and become to go-to person at local shops for strategy and tactics.  I also taught GW Academy during some of these years and I'm actually quite proud having introduced, taught and mentored many fine tournament players today.  I still get emails from them from time to time to talk about the hobby and how things have changed since I moved to the West Coast.

At year 8, something changed.  I refused to play the units I thought were lame fluff wise or didn't look good on the table top.  I found myself running themes like Kabal-only and no weird Haemonculi shit.  Hell, I don't own a single Thunderwolf because I think the idea of Space Marines riding giant wolves is a crapmix of Sci-fi and Fantasy.  Even today, I own a single constructed Venom lol.

I look back and see what has happened in the last 5 years and I see the following:  I started working at Blizzard (where a lot of people play casually), I got married, I got a house, and I'm looking to have kids in the near future.  Could this be me maturing as a gamer?  Or am I just getting old?  I find myself focusing more on the design of the units and talking about how things should be a lot more.  Part of this is because I work in the gaming industry, but maybe the other part is that I just don't find cutthroat games fun anymore.  Shit, maybe some day I'll paint again.

What about you guys?  How do you play your hobby?

One million views

Brace for impact.

Thank you all for all your support thus far!  I opened shop as a one-man writing team a little over 3 years ago.  It's been good times and smooth sailing.

Looking back through all my articles, I would say I developed as a writer quite a bit since I first started.  I read some of my earlier pieces and I'm like god, did I write this shit?  I've taken a little more time with articles these days, but I still make some mistakes.  Oh well.

Next month is High Elves and the month after is Eldar.  Be prepared to be spammed with rumors, reviews, games and battle reports!  To celebrate, I'll share with you my favorite 40K art to date.  There's just nothing manlier than an Assault Space Marine rearranging your face on the charge.

PS - I've been playing Age of Empires 3 on my spare time, the game's amazing.  I was really good at it too!

40K Allies and WHFB

Lookin' good man.

So what are the chances that WHFB will see Allies as a permanent thing 9th Edition?

It's been a while now since 6th Ed. 40K has been released.  What are your thoughts on having allies in general?  For me, it always feels like Imperials get a lot of their bases covered while Xenos gets kinda screwed.  Eldar being BB with Dark Eldar really does help, but what about Tyranids?

How do all of you feel about allies in 40K and maybe in WHFB?  Do you see any super imbalance in WHFB?

This completely breaks my immersion

Yeah, I have a problem.

My Fast Skimmer with Aethersails moving 42" gets hit by a Guardman's rifle butt on a 3+.

Remember that talk we had a few days ago about good game design?  About immersion and how things make sense?  Yeah, the above absolutely kills all forms of imagination.

What about you folks?  What breaks your immersion in your gaming?

PS - I'm getting into BFG again.  My gaming group here's jumping in pretty hard.  Gonna play Craftworld Eldar, using the FAQ2010 rules.